Hutchison Whampoa attacks unionist lawmaker in first comments on dockers' strike
Li Ka-shing's top lieutenant attacks unionist lawmaker amid ad campaign over dockers' increasingly bitter pay-and-conditions dispute
Tensions over the dockers' strike rose further yesterday as one of Li Ka-shing's top lieutenants publicly slammed unionist lawmaker Lee Cheuk-yan.
"Lee Cheuk-yan resorts to every means - he doesn't want an outcome at all, hoping that as the strike drags on, he can negotiate with Mr Li so as to boost his own publicity," Fok, Hutchison Whampoa's group managing director, said to reporters on a trip to Beijing. "This [strike] has been using the style of the Cultural Revolution [where people are vilified on banners and posters]," he added.
Fok said he did not believe the dockers' working conditions were that bad and they were "willing to work long hours".
His remarks were the first public ones on the strike from Hutchison Whampoa - the parent company of port operator Hongkong International Terminals, whose contractors employ the 450 striking dockers.
Lee hit back, deriding Fok as the "King of all workers", a swipe at the executive's high pay package, and said Fok could not understand the plight of grass-roots workers.
As for Fok's reference to Cultural Revolution tactics, Lee said: "We just want to express how discontented we feel ... [the head shots] are just comical creativity used all the time in modern society to express the emotions of people," Lee said.